Come along to a free poetry reading and conversation on family, addiction, loss, and recovery. Featuring poets Răzvan Țupa and Christina Thatcher.

Răzvan Ţupa

Among the most important Romanian literary figures who began publishing after 2000, a decade after the fall of communism, Răzvan Ţupa is a prime example of his own critique of ‘the problem of generations’ remarked upon in a 2007 entry on his then-website, romanianbodies.blogspot.com: ‘the usage of the term . . . proved to work against the personal mark of each writer.’
Ţupa’s stylistic signature is poetry that comes across as experimental, resistant of linguistic formulas and characterized by his interest in ‘relational poetics’. His work has been cited by Ian Irvine Hobson as instrumental in promoting the theoretical dimensions of poetry as, in Ţupa’s own words, ‘a viable tool in interpersonal and social communication and analysis’. Tupa’s books of poetry all develop from this ‘relational’ perspective. 

His first book, fetiş (fetish), which won the Mihai Eminescu National Prize for a literary debut, aimed at establishing ways to conceive of the body in poetic discourse, and his second book, corpuri româneşti (romanian bodies), continued this exploration. Ţupa’s ‘Poetics of the quotidian’ – a notable series of weekly literary meetings that lasted five years – became ‘Atelierelational’ in 2010, organizing writing workshops that foster an interactive understanding of poetry. In 2013, he was invited as a resident at the OMI International Arts Center, Ledig House, New York. Ţupa is a member of Pen Club Romania.

Christina Thatcher

Shortlisted for the Bare Fiction Debut Poetry Collection Competition in 2015 and a winner in the Terry Hetherington Award for Young Writers in 2016, Christina Thatcher’s poetry and short stories have featured in a number of publications including The London Magazine, Planet Magazine, Acumen and The Interpreter’s House. Her first collection, More than you were, was published by Parthian Books in 2017.

Thatcher grew up in America but has made a happy home in Wales with her husband, Rich, and cat, Miso. She is a part-time teacher and PhD student at Cardiff University where she studies how creative writing can impact the lives of people bereaved by addiction. Christina keeps busy off campus too as the Poetry Editor for The Cardiff Review and as a freelance workshop facilitator and festival coordinator.

To learn more about Thatcher’s work visit her website: https://christinathatcher.com or follow her on Twitter: @writetoempower.